1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the determining of parking availability.
2. Background Art
To efficiently drive from one geographic location to another, it generally is beneficial to have driving directions. A number of interactive Internet-based mapping portals are available to generate such driving directions, including Yahoo!® Maps, MapQuest, and Google™ Maps. To use a mapping portal to generate driving directions, a user typically enters a start location (e.g., in the form of a mailing address) and a finish location. The mapping portal processes the start location and finish location information, and generates a map with generated driving directions overlaid thereupon.
Frequently, an individual that plans on driving from a start location to a finish location will need a parking space at the finish location. The locating of parking in towns/cities having scarce parking resources and/or strict parking regulations is a non-trivial task. Unfamiliarity by the individual with the destination locality can further compound this problem. Thus, the locating of parking in many localities can be time consuming. Furthermore, once a parking resource is determined, typically there is no way of determining whether any parking spaces will be available there, or where the parking spaces are located, when the individual arrives at the parking resource in the user's vehicle. This can lead to quite a bit of time wasted by the individual driving around trying to find an open parking space.
Thus, planning a point-to-point trip that accounts for a need to find parking can be quite a complex problem. What is desired are ways of efficiently and easily planning a point-to-point trip that accounts for the need for available parking at the end destination.